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Witness Recalls Days Spent With the Sniper Defendants

The two sniper defendants, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, were eager to buy an American car but so tight for cash that they wore the same rumpled clothes day after day, said Nathaniel Osbourne, the man who helped buy the Chevrolet Caprice that the authorities say the pair used during their three-week shooting spree.

Mr. Osbourne, an amateur musician who said he met the two men at a Camden, N.J., restaurant in early September, said he was motivated by compassion, especially for Mr. Malvo, 17, who, like himself, was born and reared in Jamaica and seemed to be lacking direction.

''I wanted to help them the best I could,'' he said in an interview today. ''I was just trying to be hospitable, and they didn't look like things were completely right.''

After nearly two weeks under house arrest as a material witness, Mr. Osbourne was allowed to leave his mother's home today by a federal magistrate, who found that he had fully cooperated with investigators.

Mr. Osbourne's lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, said he expected his client to be called to testify in the trials of Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo, who have been charged in the Washington-area shootings that left 10 dead and 3 wounded. They have also been charged or are suspected in other shootings and killings in Atlanta; Montgomery, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; and Tacoma, Wash.

A slightly built, jovial man whose Caribbean speech is sprinkled with religious references, Mr. Osbourne, 26, was the subject of a brief but furious manhunt after his name was found on the Caprice's insurance and registration. He was arrested in Flint, Mich., on Oct. 26, two days after the police found Mr. Muhummad and Mr. Malvo asleep in the car at a rest stop in Maryland.

The authorities have not accused Mr. Osbourne of any wrongdoing, saying he unwittingly helped the two men buy the car, which was later modified to allow them to fire a rifle through a hole in the trunk.

Mr. Osbourne called the two days he spent with Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo largely uneventful. The pair, who presented themselves as father and son, came to the restaurant, All Nations Cuisine, on Sept. 5 looking for Mr. Osbourne's brother, Walford, a cook, who had met them during a vacation in Antigua.

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Mr. Osbourne, who lived above the restaurant, said he felt pity for the two, who appeared disheveled and seemed to have little money. He fed them and gave them clothing and his bed. He said the two were obsessed by two things: buying a cheap car and sticking to a strict health food regimen, which included a variety of nutritional supplements.

Their guide, which they carried with them at all times, he said, was a book, ''The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity,'' by Daniel P. Reid. The book's jacket describes it as an introduction to Taoist philosophy for Westerners, with information on diet and nutrition, breathing, ''sex therapy'' and herbal aphrodisiacs. Mr. Osbourne said they never behaved oddly, nor did he see any guns, although they did keep a padlock on the room where they slept.

A car enthusiast, Mr. Osbourne said he decided that the best way to get them on their way was to take them shopping. Though Mr. Osbourne raved about Hondas, Mr. Muhammad insisted on buying a Chevrolet, paying $250 for the 1990 Caprice. When it became apparent that Mr. Muhammad had no insurance, Mr. Osbourne agreed to put the car under his policy temporarily because, he said, he was eager to see them go.

The next time Mr. Osbourne said he saw their faces was on a television set in Flint, where he was visiting a woman whom he had met months earlier. He has not spoken to the woman since F.B.I. agents escorted him from her house that morning.

After receiving word of the court decision this afternoon, Mr. Osbourne used a knife to cut off the monitoring anklet that had kept him at his mother's home and went outside for the first time since his arrest.

Jubilant over his new freedom, he said the last weeks had inspired him to set aside his music aspirations temporarily to work on a new goal: building a school in Jamaica for underprivileged children.

''What I've learned is that if kids like John Malvo have a skill, they won't be getting themselves in trouble,'' he said.

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A version of this article appears in print on November 15, 2002, on Page A00026 of the National edition with the headline: Witness Recalls Days Spent With the Sniper Defendants. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe